Two types of tables are commonly used in the prior art. One has stored therein character dot patterns used for controlling the placement of dots on a sheet of paper being printed. Another stores information defining the escapement, or character width, of each character to be printed in a proportional spacing format. To print characters in a proportional spacing format generally requires at least one table of each type. These tables are also generally stored in working memory of a system for controlling the dot placement on the paper being printed. The system could be a printer system or a keyboard/display standalone, or host connected, computer workstation or system which controls a printer.
The advance of the present invention is elimination of a table defining escapement. This table takes up space in working memory that (1) could be used for other purposes, and (2) can impact performance. This table can be eliminated if the character's defined dot pattern in a dot pattern table is analyzed to determine escapement. The advantages of the above advance are additional memory for other jobs, tasks, etc., and elimination of the task of building new tables for new fonts.